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Saturday, August 8, 2009

How to make a modern fountain

So sorry, folks. I was supposed to resolve the mystery of the origin of our outdoor fountain on Thursday but the annoying real world kept intruding.

So, here it is, two days late. Drum roll please.

Here is the fountain before. In its former life, it was a big fat country armoire.

Tom built me a larger version of this armoire for our first anniversary. We cut it down in size and stripped the green stain for our 10th anniversary. Around our 13th anniversary, Tom got a flat screen television of enormous proportions. Out of that transaction, I got a new media center, which he built for me.

As for the big fat country armoire, we could not sell it or even give it away since everybody else was buying flat-panel televisions of enormous size as well. So Tom used the wood and the basic structure to build a fountain.

Here's the backside of the fountain. It has a door on the bottom half.

Inside is the piping for the pump, which sits in the bottom tier of the fountain.

Tom coated the inside of each tier with roofing sealant and painted the outside with outdoor latex paint.

Neighborhood squirrels and birds treat it as their personal drinking fountain. It's really refreshing to sit by it (as I am now) and listen to the water flow.

Yeah, I wish we had more "in-between" photos. The bottom half of the armoire became the bottom tier of the fountain. The back of the armoire became the back of the fountain. The bullnose ledge because the top ledge of each tier. The rest was cut up bits and pieces. (Interestingly the original armoire was also partially recycled from a small media center and strips of mahogany from scraps of window trim.)